Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

Last week found me at home in Bishops Mills, multitasking a diversity projects and errands ranging from catching up on the previous week's paintings to attending meetings to paying bills to emergency lake surveys to moving furniture - so hectic that it's hard to recall it all.  I took a break from new daily paintings, which was very difficult to persuade myself to do, as each day presented me with potential painting subjects that I was obliged to ignore! This week is shaping up the same way, as I haven't caught up with essential aspects of my life yet, and planned field trips for the 30 Years Later Expedition have accordingly been delayed while Fred attends to specimen curation and report writing.  I know I call them "daily paintings" but we're coming to the realization that when I resume the Biodiversity miniatures, they should be on two separate schedules - five per week while the Expedition is active, and three per week while we're at home. So you ...

18 June finds me at the dam in Oxford Mills, Ontario, after an afternoon of filming for the Mudpuppy documentary.  I step down to the grassy flat bit of shore on the east side that Fred calls the "Island" and settle to paint the racing white water below the spillway.  The lowest limestone ledge on the other side is still submerged since the recent heavy rain.  We call that closest ledge to the dam the "Vantage Point" for Mudpuppy viewing in the winter.  People also fish from there for Brown Bullheads (which they call Mudpout) during the spring spawning run. I enjoy the challenge of capturing the dancing white foam with my brush.  I want to catch the eye with the bright movement of it before the gaze drifts to the right and then circles up among the sunlight glints on foliage to the trees and back to the dam - then along the warmly lit rock of the ledges, and back to the rollicking foam in midstream.  The dark space above the stone wall of the dam ...

17 June finds me at the South Nation River in South Mountain, Ontario - pushing through to the water edge through tall Calamagrostis that hold their grass flowers high above my head. I disturb a Bull Frog which squeaks as it splashes in.  Rich purple and dark green, Deadly Nightshade's flowers make a rich contrast with its leaves.  Serrated-edged Nettles are shoulder height, but wading in the river edge I step past them unscathed. Now I can see Fred wading in search of mussel shells along the far bank near the bridge. Flowering Rush is just beginning to bloom, one plant in bud and one in flower.  Several more poke their green spears from the water, flat but thick and tender like garlic leaves. Two young Green or Bull Frogs escape unseen from the long grass of the bank into the water as I move down the bank toward the Flowering Rush that is fully open. I've been in love with this plant since I painted it for my book "A Place to Walk" in 1994.  Native to Africa, ...

16 June finds me, back at home for a week or so, sitting on the grass beside our rural mailbox in Bishops Mills to admire one of my favorite roadside flowers, Bladder Campion, growing among the Red Clover.  I like the Campion's misty, pink and green tinted balloons with their lively white asterisks of petals. As usual, bird sound carries on around me, especially the insistent "cheep, cheep, cheep" of the House Sparrow fledgelings, who are out of the nest now.  They follow their parents about, begging noisily.  One would think that this makes them an easy target for predators such as cats, but apparently the survival of little sparrows is better if they shout for food than if they hide and stay quiet, even if some of them may get picked off by cats.  Perhaps the parent gives them a warning signal to be quiet if a cat is seen.  There are not many cats loose in Bishops Mills this year, so I suppose all of the birds are doing better. Sparrows in particular seem...

15 June finds us on the shore of the St Lawrence River just west of Maitland, Ontario, looking across the seaway to New York State. We feel our way down the steep slope east of the parking area, through a waist-high stand of Impatiens capensis (Spotted Jewelweed) - none of the pink Impatiens glandulifera here yet, though it's an ideal site for it - and Fred grubs up some moist drift from the current driftline of reed stems and pine needles into a bag to sort for sowbugs.  Above him Redwings are acting out their little dramas in the branches of a huge luxurious willow that arch, like a hemispherical world of tree, above its many deeply grooved trunks.  A ship passes slowly at a distance and I decide to include it in my painting. Fred wades to the limit of his boot height, turning slabs to look for crayfish. The water level is about a foot lower than it has been at some other visits here, and there's about a metre of stony gravelly beach between the lower limit of ...

14 June finds me stopped to photograph the little wetland along the west part of Highway 43 in Kemptville, Ontario.  The sun beams through the tall trees at the far side, highlighting the red-tipped new growth of the willow bushes.  "Check-check, Check-check, Bleeeee!" scolds a Redwing, flapping overhead like a black moth, all feathers spread, blunt-tipped wings and fanned tail.  Back and forth, persistently calling, effectively distracting my attention from wherever his nest is among the cattails beyond the ditch.  When he flies low I can see his bright red epaulettes fluffed up like little pompoms.  He is so concerned about my potential as a threat to his family, but he doesn't know the real threat to his home.  Several metres from where I stand is posted a sign that reads, "2 Acres Commercial, Will Build to Suit" along with the developer's name and phone number. I call this painting "Provincially Insignificant Wetland" because the only wetl...

oil on canvad 5 x 7                                 $275 12 June finds us in the woods of the Letrim Wetland, south of Ottawa.  I have settled myself among old fallen branches, to paint a delightful tangle.  A Hemlock's roots are embracing those of a Yellow Birch, whose roots, on the other side, flow over an old rotting "nurse log".  The evening sun gleams brightly on the Birch's silky, curly bark - not chalky white like Paper Birch, but brightly glossy with an almost metallic, pale brassy-grey sheen that never fails to enchant me. We entered through a dense stand of Buckthorn on the east side of Albion Road, but the trail that we've followed in past years seems to have disappeared and it's already evening, so we decide not to go farther into the forest.  Fred reminds me that it will soon be mosquito time, so I paint fast, starting with a brownish-black underpainting to help me t...

10 June finds me stopped to admire a group of resting horses and a shaggy donkey on Snowdons Corners Road, south east of Merrickville, Ontario. The sky is lowering and the air feels pregnant with rain - but woven with a continuous fabric of bird song. Robins, Song Sparrows, Redwings, Savanna Sparrows, Killdeer, Chipping Sparrows, all blending together like different coloured threads.  A phoebe lands briefly on the telephone wire, wagging its tail up and down, so I know its song must be part of the mix as well, even though I haven't heard it.  Meadowlarks and Boblolinks are conspicuous in their absence.  20 years ago they were in every summer hayfield and pasture around here, but small farms with grazing stock are disappearing and old fields are closing in with shrubs and trees.  Many are being choked up with invasive Buckthorn.  We have not heard or seen Upland Plover for several years, and other grassland birds that were much more abundant are also beco...

9 June finds me at New Terra Farm south of Merrickville, Ontario, admiring Scott and Susie's splendid rooster.  I am told that he is a cross between the heritage breeds of Red Dorking and Black Australorpe.  The hens are Black Australorpe.  They are good-natured birds, multi-purpose, and this rooster is not agressive toward people. Ever since we first got our own laying hens, chickens have fascinated me. Observed closely, their heads have an unlovely, wrinkled, beaky shape that makes me think of dinosaurs. The domestic breeds have their origin in Red Jungle Fowl in northeast India, and this fellow looks very like his distant ancestor. Their natural instincts are so compatible with domestic life, as jungle fowl flocks are nomadic, nesting wherever and whenever they find a bamboo grove that has flowered and gone to seed.  Bamboo in different areas synchronize their flowering, so the fowl often must travel far, foraging on insects and various seeds, until they find a...

8 June finds me in Britannia Park on the Ottawa River after a day of running errands in Ottawa.  The setting sun glints through the Maples and the sails of boats on the river hardly seem to move except when they appear between different tree trunks.  People on the beach stand in groups in the sunset glow, and a woman walks toward me on the asphalt path. Brittania Bay is rich in freshwater mussels and has a lot of natural shoreline.  Fred's from past visits record collections of the shells of Elliptio complanata, Strophitus undulatus, and three species of Lampsilis .  Today the view I have chosen stops me short of the beach, though I know he'll ask me what I found there...

7 June finds me looking upstream from the Nonquon River bridge on Scugog Line 12.  The winding Nonquon, which flows north and east into Lake Scugog at Seagrave, Ontario, flows strait enough here to afford a lovely distant view.  Several turtle nests have been dug up by Skunks or Raccoons, the curled white shells littering the gravel at each corner of the bridge. After it passes beneath my feet, the Nonquon flows for a couple of hundred metres along the road.  Wild Irises bloom there, pale violet flowers bright against the dark water, and a long bank of Daylilies are raising their flower stalks, in preparation for opening the tender buds, one day at a time. Redwings sing in the willow marsh, and Yellow Warblers twitter. The wind ripples westward from the centre of the river and tosses the tall grasses on the banks, threading its fingers through dark, hollow-stemmed Scirpus that wave their brown-tasselled tips in little islands just off the bank.  A Green Frog calls ...

5 June finds me at the microscope on the table in our tiny Boler trailer near Seagrave, Ontario, painting tiny mites less than a milimetre in size.  My landscape paintings have gone on hold while I work hard and fast to finish a large watercolour of four views of a male fresh water mite for the frontispiece of a book about the biodiversity of Atlantic Canada. The deadline is Monday, 7 June. This job is a re-painting of the illustration that I finished in February from preserved specimens, but which was declared by Ian Smith, the mite expert at Agriculture Canada, to be lacking in brightness of colour.  So this spring he collected a fresh sample of these engaging, exceedingly tiny creatures from a creek near Almonte, Ontario, and their brightness made my earlier watercolour look like an old sepia print! Now I have two of the four positions finished on my large piece of stretched watercolour paper - but yesterday I quickly did a set of small watercolour sketches to record t...

30 May  finds us in the Cypress Hills on the Saskatchewan side, admiring the handsome Black Angus cattle that seem to be sprinkled like pepper over some of the hillsides - finding them gracing this view of the high hills just south of the provincial park entrance.  Spruces grow on only the highest hills.  It is colder up here, with a few patches of snow in the ditches, and also gleaming in little pockets near the tops of distant hills. I think that the cattle who range here may be helping to maintain a natural ecology for these hills, replacing the Bison whose grazing, in addition to prairie fires, maintained the native grasslands, which without fire and grazing would be taken over by forest. Chorus frogs are "grikking" from every wet place all through the area, and as afternoon becomes evening, the ghostly aerial whinnies of Snipe sound from above in many quarters.  I watched one dive, its feathers uluating as the tiny silhouette of the bird, high above me, swun...